::wikiveg:: an animal free wiki

New skin

I’ve been neglecting to write about the wiki proper lately due to the SHAC 7 trial goings-on, but there has been stuff going on. Most excitingly (for me at least), I’ve been for most of the past 24 hours working on a new skin (i.e. layout) for the site. I’ll probably be done in another couple days. I’ve thought for a while that we really needed one – so many people just won’t come back if a site looks ugly – but been too scared of CSS.

Turns out though CSS isn’t that bad. I just jumped in and started messing with it.

What I’m working on will be a good bit simpler-looking than the standard “Monobook” skin we currently have, what with all its lines and boxes everywhere. I think across the top is going to be a banner made up of veggie or animal liberation related silhouettes, not entirely unlike (though not entirely like either) what you see on this site. I spent the last couple hours trying to get a nice silhouette of a rodent of some kind being freed (below), though frustratingly I’ve lost the original link so I don’t know what kind of animal it is or where. I’m not super happy with the graphic, and may not use it in the final skin, but it gives you a general sort of gander of where this is going.

New pages

Perhaps the most important page recently made is Eric McDavid. Eric was arrested back in January, along with a two others, for allegedly planning to destroy some cell phone towers, one or more power plants, and a facility of the U.S. Forest Service Institute of Forest Genetics. They were arrested mostly because they, along with many other radical groups over the years, had been infiltrated by a young undercover agent who went by the name of “Anna”.

When I went down for the SHAC 7 trial last week, I met a girl doing prison support for him and the two other activists. I had heard about some recently-arrested activist who was on the third week of a hunger strike because he was being denied vegan meals; it turns out this was Eric McDavid, and that very recently, after about a month, they started feeding him suitable meals.

Still, letters would be appreciated, and if you’re near Sacramento you could visit him. (Also on the vegan prisoner front, Peter Young has been allowed to receive books again. His wikiveg page hasn’t been updated yet though, so see SupportPeter.com for more info on that.)

Other articles include: a Philadelphia page; one on Mary Lou Sapone, an undercover agent who did something tres bizarre in the 80s; Teany, a cafe opened by vegan musician Moby; Huntingdon Life Sciences (did I already mention that before?); elephants, which apparently are more and more frequently being born tuskless due to a certain gene being promoted by hunting (“unnatural selection”).

Finally, there’s an article on soya toxicity (aka soy toxicity). Apparently some sources say that soy in high enough amounts (amounts many vegans get) becomes bad for you. Other sources say this is just dairy-industry propaganda. I’m not sure which is true, but I did notice a long article about this in an issue of Herbivore I have, so I’ll try to read it and add some info from it in the next week or so.

New blogs

There’s what looks like a really good, down-to-business blog on U.S. animal law called Hounded, Cowed, & Badgered. Also, Herbivore just launched a staff blog.